Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Endangered Female Gender by Samuel Ogunjo

What will a woman do to be free? When will a woman be safe? From birth to death, females live in fear and peril, shackled by societal injustice, religious oppression and cultural inhibition.

The girl-child has become a target for rape irrespective of class, cloth or location? The girl-child sits on the edge as safety becomes a dilemma; abuser can be anyone. Report shows that a higher percentage of assaulters are familiar faces rather than strangers. Girls are raped in schools, fields, offices, markets and religious settings. Girls are raped even in hijab or cassock. The barbaric addition by paedophiles and money ritualists is the rape of babies!

The quagmire females are put into does not end in rape. She may be beaten blue black for not excelling beyond boys in her class yet she is the one called to the kitchen to render help at mealtime. In college, it’s sex for marks or she must be prepared to score double so the lecturer is denied the joy of playing stock exchange with his libido.

She talks about marriage too early, she is called wayward, too late she is hounded by married men and divorcees; as younger men are warned to stay away for fear biology will not cooperate with her age.

A marriage without a child is automatically the fault of the woman even if the man’s swimmers are on sabbatical. Modernisation has not affected the dark age lens with which many view women. Two people make babies but when the minister calls to the altar for prayers of fruitfulness, it is for “barren women” not infertile men.

We claim a super high percentage of religiousity, yet if the belly is not well rounded by 9 months, friends, family, folks of the groom are already pitching Titi, Ifeoma, Halima as alternate measure like he needs a child running around to affirm that the male he has noted on forms all his life is indeed valid. And when he finally eats the forbidden fruit, which responds in the womb of an accomplice, who does society blame! EVE.

You’ll expect the “drag her” mentality would end with the passing of her lordship; not quite. He dies, she caused it and must now pay with drinking water from his corpse, shoved head, cold nights on the bare floor, naked walk to the stream and/or serial rape to “sexually cleanse” her for the next owner of her head. ABOMINABLE!

And we still wonder how and why our land appear to be operating under curses. No culture would rise standing on the heads and hearts of women who give her life. NONE.

Widowhood marks the culmination of injustice against women. Widows are deprived of inheritance earned throught hardwork with a man to sow, sustain or harvest. They are left cold, homeless and are made to suffer through barbaric practices that should never be tagged cultural for culture is a way of life that works. The dehumanisation would make primitive men shriek in pain.

Sadly, the marriage certificate has become a worthless paper as the law appears to offer zero protection for our priceless women. Where Living Will provides protection, a rush of adrenaline inspired by wickedness that leads siblings, parents, colleagues of the deceased to the court, grope judicial and security officers into a rape of mind, money, material and memories.

The greatest INJUSTICE against womanhood is the conspiracy of silence by men and women who should know better. There is no better time to END WIDOW ABUSE and eliminate all forms of discrimination, dehumanisation and disinheritance of females.

Edited by Dr. Omolola Omoteso

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